Chapter 1: In Which We Meet Our Heroine
Life, Maddie thought to herself as she sank down onto the couch in front of the television, sure could surprise you sometimes. She'd thought she'd known what to expect, and then the mountain opened up and a bunch of monsters wandered on out. Not stampeded, not invaded. Wandered. Led by a kid in a striped sweater. Who was now their official ambassador.
Yeah...the world was weird sometimes.
Things had gone pretty much as expected since then. The world had been polarized, some all for welcoming the Monsters into the modern world. Others wanted to send them back where they came from. Fear and ignorance had the worst of the lot crying out for them to be registered, put in camps, or exterminated all together. Cooler heads prevailed for now but things were far from ideal. Negotiations for the rights of Monsters were still underway, the use of magic a particular sticking point.
Magic. Real, actual magic. There were days that Maddie still couldn't quite believe it. But there it was, walking down the street in its furry, crazy, sometimes multi-armed glory. And it was wonderful.
It's a shame not everyone thought so. Hardly a couple weeks went by when there wasn't some report of some sort of vandalism or violence against a monster or their property.
Speaking of… She turned her attention back to the news report, her forkful of browned potatoes freezing halfway to her mouth.
"Fire crews were called last night to a condo complex at the edge of the city in the latest of incidents to affect the Monster-run residence. The fire began in the early hours of the morning, sending residents running from their homes. Nobody was injured but arson was believed to have been a factor. Investigators are requesting that anyone with any information please call the TroubleHunters hotline at 555-TIPS-"
Maddie almost threw the remote at the TV in disgust. What the hell kind of person would do something like that to a bunch of innocent people? Sure they were Monsters but why did that have to matter? They were still people. Couldn't they see this was just history repeating itself? Concentration camps in World War II, race riots in the '60s. Why did people have to be this way? Why couldn't they just - okay so 'hug it out' was a bit of a cliche but what was wrong with that?
The news report the next night was not any more favourable. The complex had sustained heavy damage both from the fire and the water used to put it out. Residents would not be able to return for several months. The municipality was requesting that residents of the city who would be willing to host some of the displaced Monsters call them to make arrangements.
The moment she heard Maddie picked up her phone and called her landlord. "Hey Duane, I've got a favour to ask."
The process was...okay it was a travesty. Maddie was sure she could have said she intended to skin whatever Monsters they gave her and wear them as a suit and the officials still would have signed off on it. They just wanted to get the freaks out of their hair. All they wanted to know was how many she was willing to host and if her landlord had given written permission for it. Duane, being an old SCA buddy of hers, hadn't said boo about it. Well, he had, in a series of ghost-related jokes that were in no way malicious. He had happily provided the written permission and offered to put together a supplementary rental agreement for whomever would be staying with her.
The woman she spoke to, a reedy creature in a boxy deep blue suit, eyed her speculatively. "Would you be open to taking on a family, of sorts? We've got two here, brothers, that we've been having trouble placing."
"Sure," she shrugged. No reason to separate them if she already had the room, right? "Why have you had trouble placing them?"
"There haven't been many people willing to board more than one," the woman admitted. "Actually...you would be the first."
Maddie fought manfully not to roll her eyes. She failed utterly. "That's ridiculous. They're just people."
"Some families just don't have the extra space," the woman pointed out diplomatically.
But they both knew the truth. It wasn't the room in their homes that were lacking but room in their hearts.
"So what can you tell me about these brothers?"
It would take a couple of days to finalize the arrangements. There would be negotiations with the insurance company and other complicated crap that Maddie was glad she did not have to deal with. As it was there was a small mountain of paperwork. Insurance forms and disclaimers and a special form stating that she gave her houseguests permission to use magic while they stayed with her. That one she signed without a second thought because hell yes magic.
With her soul essentially signed away Maddie left the municipal office and turned towards home.
She really couldn't help stopping at the bookstore on the way. Being an utter bibliophile and not caring who knew it, she was a regular at the establishment and had even worked there through her university years. And okay, old habits died hard and it wasn't unusual to see her starting conversations with other random people in the store and recommending books to them.
But you're going to be good this time, she reminded herself as she parked her car in the lot and made her way inside. No ambushing. And you're only coming in to see what's new. Then you can download them to - holy shit a dragon. Well, okay, not a dragon as they didn't appear to have wings but a Drake of some sort certainly. Or a dinosaur? They were maybe a foot shorter than her in height and covered in golden yellow scales. A long white coat covered them from neck to ankle, a pair of wire rimmed glasses perched on their nose. And they were reading manga. Maddie's inner nerd shrieked rainbows of joy.
Do not ambush. Do not ambush. Do not - ooh hey the new Kamisama Hajimemashita is out. Do not ambush. Do not ambush. "That's a good series. Mew Mew Kissy Cutie volume 5 is one of my favourites." God damn it Maddie!"
"W-what?" The little drake started, jerking back in surprise. "O-oh. Y-yes. It's a g-good s-series. I-I didn't r-realize t-there was s-so much o-out." Her collection was patchy at best, made up of whatever she could find that had found its way to the underground. And now there were three whole seasons! Three!
"I'm glad the artist kept going with the series. She went on hiatus for a while and bounced around with a few one-shots but this one is totally the best," Maddie told her. "Ooh if you like this, have you watched RWBY yet?"
"R-RWBY?" She - going by the voice, definitely a 'she' - "N-no n-not yet."
"It's pretty cool. Done by a group called Rooster Teeth. They just finished volume three. Fantasy creatures, awesome soundtrack, and the combo weapons are just cool. The main girl's scythe doubles as a sniper rifle."
"I-I think m-my g-girlfriend would l-love it," she smiled. "T-thank you. I-I'm A-Alphys, b-by the w-way." She held out one small, clawed hand to shake.
Maddie beamed back, shaking her hand enthusiastically. "Maddie. Well, Madison, but the only person who calls me that is my grandma."
"N-nice to m-meet you, M-Maddie."
"You too, Alphys," she grinned. "So what other series are you and your girlfriend into?"
They were big into the Sword & Sorcery genre, which Maddie found particularly fitting especially once Alphys told her that her girlfriend had been Captain of the Royal Guard. Alphys herself was the Royal Scientist. The two of them were living on the university campus now, not due to the fire at the monster condo but because of an unfortunate cooking incident that occurred when Undyne, the girlfriend, had been making dinner. It was for the best anyway, or so Alphys said. They had a lot more space now and she was close to her lab.
"Well that's handy at least. I bet your work is miles ahead of what they've been working on."
"N-not e-exactly," Alphys demurred, her cheeks blushing a light pink. "Just d-different. M-mixing m-magic and science isn't r-really d-done on the s-surface."
"Probably because most people here didn't believe in magic anymore until the mountain opened up," Maddie commented wryly. "Whatever skill humans had in magic was lost so long ago the rest of us treat it as a myth. Which, considering the state of the world right now, is probably for the best."
"P-probably…"
"Still, be cool to see more magical integration into society," Maddie mused. "People just have to stop being such buttheads about it."
Alphys gave a nervous chuckled but whatever she was about to say was cut off as 'Mother Knows Best' from Tangled started blaring from Maddie's phone.
Maddie cringed, quickly pulling her phone from her pocket and hitting 'ignore'. "Sorry about that. The Motherbeast calleth. It's okay. She'll call back later."
"Y-you call your m-mother 'the m-mother-b-beast'?"
She shrugged sheepishly. "You'd be surprised how apt the term is sometimes. I mean she's my mom and I love her but she can also be kind of the bane of my life. Which is a little too much to get into considering we just met. Sorry about that. You want to hang out sometime? Maybe grab coffee or something?"
"R-really?" Alphys blinked then smiled shyly. "I-I'd like that."
"Cool!" She grinned. "Okay contacts….add… phone number?" The little drake stammered out the number. Maddie repeated it before saving the new contact. "Cool! Some time next week work?"
"Y-yeah, that w-would be g-great."
"Cool," she repeated, then sighed as 'Mother Knows Best' started playing again. "And there goes the bell for round two."
"Y-you should p-probably g-get that," Alphys chuckled. "I h-have to be g-going a-anyway. I-it was n-nice m-meeting you."
"You too Alphys." Steeling herself, Maddie accepted the call, silencing the song. "Hey Mom, how's it going?"
Well...that call could have gone better. It could have been worse - they'd definitely had worse conversations in the past - but it could could have gone a lot better. The usual guilt trips for moving out, the not-so-subtle dig that, now that her roommates had moved out and gotten engaged, that she should just move back home. Never mind that she was twenty-seven years old. She should just stay home, where her mom could take care of her forever. What might have possessed her to tell her mother that she had new room-mates, a pair of monsters, moving in with her in the next few days, she didn't know. Actually...possession might explain it.
Of course she'd had to leave the store, fighting to keep her voice even in the face of her mother's histrionics. Because God forbid she act like a reasonable human being in the face of this information. Oh no, as far as she was concerned these monsters were going to devour Maddie in her bed. She didn't even bother to point out her mom's unfortunate choice of phrasing. All she could do was roll her eyes and point out that no monster on the surface had so much as harmed a hair on a kitten's head, let alone a person's. If they hadn't eaten the kid who was their ambassador, they probably weren't going to be eating her.
She was going to have to keep her family far, far away from her apartment for the next while. Her dad...well he might be reasonable. He was certainly the most stable of her parents so aside from concerns about having strange males living with her, regardless of the species, he might actually be okay with the whole arrangement.
Good thing being an adult and living on her own meant her parents' opinions didn't have to matter as much anymore.
"Well mom if they do eat me I promise you can have first dibs on saying 'I told you so'," Maddie sighed, fighting the urge to beat her head against her steering wheel. "Look I'm meeting a friend for coffee in a moment. I've got to go." Liar, liar. "Love you too. See you later."
Dear...God… See this, this is why she moved out. She loved her mom - of course she did - but the longer she stayed there the more she felt herself being stripped away. Everything she did seemed to have her mother's stamp on it, from the way she dressed to the way she spoke. She remembered, when she let herself, that she'd been as shallow as a puddle and with about as much substance. It had been the work of three years to get to where she was and there were still times where she questioned if she was slipping.
So she couldn't give in to her mother's wishes, no matter how badly the part of her that yearned for approval begged to. She'd finally started to figure out who she really was. She couldn't go back to the way she was before. It was a matter of integrity, hard-won as it had been.
It was about doing what was right.